The ministry also reported 39 new deaths in the past 24 hours nationwide, bringing the total fatalities nationwide to 22819.

The statement added that the total number of recoveries is 367026.

The recent spike in infections comes as Egypt continues to push ahead with efforts to expand its vaccination campaign to vaccinate 70 percent of the population by the second half of 2022 amid the outbreak of the omicron variant.

Egypt has administered a total of 37.8 million first vaccine doses and 26.9 million second doses since the start of the mass vaccination campaign in January of 2021, according to the health ministry’s daily statistics.

As many as 628,111 booster shots have been administered in recent weeks as well, bringing the total number of doses administered since the start of the campaign to 65.4 million.

Egypt is expected to witness a decline in infections in two to three weeks, Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, the health ministry’s spokesperson, said in remarks to the media on Wednesday.